Hi Nat, where are you? In a cafe where they now know me by sight. I drink too much coffee. It's like Cheers in here.

I hear you're addicted to Edinburgh? I've come eight years on the trot; it never occurs to me to be anywhere else in August.

Is it still true that it costs about £10k for a standup to do a show at the festival? Yes. But this year I'm doing a solo show on the free fringe, so it's costing a third of that. There's a lot of people with brightly coloured hair coming to see me. It's like looking out on a sea of My Little Ponies.

What's the best advice anyone's ever given you? Josie Long said never read your own reviews. I don't. I've never googled myself in six years of standup.

Never? Shut up. Honestly. Never.

So you've never seen the Nat Luurtsema porn tumblr? Hahaha. That could totally be out there, but I've no temptation to look. I don't care what strangers say about me.

What's been your worst Edinburgh experience? Well, I went blind one year for three days.

Blind, blind? Yeah, I left my contacts in for three days and got ulcers on my eyeballs. It happened while I was watching one of Mark Watson's 24-hour shows – all the way through.

That's just self-harm! I know. There was a period where I was in A&E every Edinburgh festival for four years.

How's your health this year? Great. Though my laptop was stolen on the first night, with all my work, my standup show, my second novel, and a feature film ... and of course, it wasn't backed up. I'm taking it well because it's Edinburgh and Edinburgh is chaos, but my first few shows trying to remember an hour of standup, my God!

Incredible. Someone told me I should take acid to unlock my memory and get my show back. But then there's the risk of me being naked on the Udderbelly cow, trying to ride it back to London.